Midterms, Guinea Pigs and Souvenirs: The Blog Post of Utter Miscellany.

So we had a midterm today. It was easy. Not much to say on that.

The exciting part was just BEFORE the midterm, when I went to a restaurant near the Plaza de Armas which served guinea pig! It's know here as cuy. It's salty and gamey and has the texture of chicken. Overall, I found it quite delicious.

Pictures ensue:

The people at the table behind me were horrified. It was
hilarious.

Smile for the camera, piggeh.

Aside from that wonderful experience, I've also been doing a lot of shopping. Here's almost everything I've bought thus far:

It's a llama!

Shoes for dad. Alpaca fur!

Chintzy bottle openers. One is a tumi, the
other has Machu Picchu on it.

Socks!

My personal alpaca fur slippers.

More alpaca socks!

Some cute beaded things. I don't know what they're actually
meant for, but I'm using them as jewelry.

Some chullo hats!

An alpaca sweater for B.Joyful

An alpaca blanket! It keeps me toasty here
in the Andes.

Finger puppets for Marcus! There are two more, as well.

And a whole bunch of random pictures that have been sitting on my SD card, waiting to be used. We're at the halfway mark on the trip, so I figure it's time to purge all this.

A cake case at the local supermarket bakery, for mom. :)

Delicious Choko cookies and a Sublime stick.

More snacks bought from a street vendor.

It's the 100th anniversary of the "discovery"
of Machu Picchu by Hiram Bingam.

That is all for tonight, my love muffins! See you tomorrow when I report back on the ruins at Sacsayhuaman.

Love,
-B

Qoricancha

Or Coricancha. Or Corikancha. Or Qorikancha. Yeah, Quechua words have many translations into English.

Either way, Qoricancha is one of the most (or perhaps the most) important sites in the Inca Empire. It had five temples within the complex, including the Sun Temple, Moon Temple, Rainbow Temple, Star Temple and Lightning Temple. The Sun and Moon Temples were destroyed by the colonial Spanish, who constructed the Church of Santo Domingo over their former areas.

According to the Spanish records, the site was originally covered in gold. The whole thing. None of this gold survives today, since it was either looted by the Spanish after they took the site over, or used by the Inca to ransom their king, Atahualpa, back to them from the Spanish. Good job, Spanish. Way to ruin something beautiful.

But here are some pictures of the site, as it stands today!

The Spanish courtyard, built over what used to
be the Sun Temple and Moon Temple.

That's the flag here in Cusco.

And here are some shots of the original Inca structures:

Trapezoidal windows and doors were common in Inca
architecture.

These windows are perfectly aligned, hundreds of years and
earthquakes after their original construction. The Spanish
architecture has not fared nearly as well.

Supposedly the smallest stone used in construction in all
of the Inca Empire. It was made to fit the chipped corner
of the stone to the right.

Channels cut in the stone intended for casting metal shapes.

The partially reconstructed throne of the
Inca king. The throne of the queen was destroyed.

 The outside of the church/temple had some impressive views of the city:

Viva el Peru!

And some miscellaneous shots of the Spanish architecture:

Ceiling inside the Church of Santo Domingo.

Random artsy shot from behind the flag.

This Spanish plaster work once covered most of the original
Inca walls, however, an earthquake shook the site at one point,
knocking all the plaster off the walls, but leaving the Inca
structures completely in tact. What now, Spaniards?

A pot! It's Spanish!

Spanish walls on top of Inca walls. Former site of the
Sun Temple.

More Sun Temple-turned-church.

Some crazy blogger girl.

FINALLY going to post my souvenirs tomorrow, I swear.

Love,

-B